Joint Meeting of Cross Departmental Team on Homelessness and National Homelessness Consultative Committee

Minutes of Meeting

23 May 2012, Custom House

Attendance

Jan O’Sullivan T.D. Minister for Housing and Planning

Michael Layde (Chair) Dept. of the Environment, Community and Local Government

Ger Gilroy (secretariat) Dept. of the Environment, Community and Local Government

Claire Gavin Dept. of the Environment, Community and Local Government

Eddie Lewis Dept. of the Environment, Community and Local Government

Dr Eoin O’Sullivan Trinity College Dublin

Karen Murphy Irish Council for Social Housing

Mike Allen Focus Ireland

Peter Lewis Focus Ireland

Kerry Anthony De Paul Ireland

Niamh Randall Simon

Bob Jordan Threshold

Vincent Keenan NABCO

Martin O’ Connor COPE

Tony Flynn COSC

Gerry McNally The Probation Service

Caroline Sellars Irish Prison Service

Seamus Sisk Irish Prison Service

Cathal Morgan Dublin City Council

John O’Riordan Cork City Council

Aileen O’Connor Cork City Council

Maurice Hoare Health Service Executive

Concepta de Bruin Health Service Executive

Dairearca Ni Neill Drugs Policy Unit (Department of Health)

Alan Kelly Drugs Policy Unit (Department of Health)

Michael Cunningham Department of Social Protection

Billy Hicks Department of Social Protection

Andrew Conlan Department of Public Expenditure and Reform

Noreen Leahy Department of Children and Youth Affairs

Apologies

Joyce Loughnan Make Room

Daithi Downey Dublin City Council

Ann Gilton Department of Social Protection

Jackie Harrington Department of Social Protection

Geraldine Luddy Department of Health

Alan Bell Department of Health

Tim McCarthy Department of Health

Seamus Hempenstall Department of Education

Introduction

The Chair, Michael Layde opened the meeting and invited each person around the table to introduce themselves. He then asked the Minister for Housing and Planning to say a few words.

Following is summary of remarks from the Minister

The Minister said she was delighted to attend this first meeting to be held in over a year and while she had met with many members of both the CDT and the NHCC separately it was a great pleasure to attend this joint session of CDT and NHCC. She referred to the Review of the Strategy and she said that the Programme for Government had committed to reviewing and updating the existing Homeless Strategy and to adopting a ‘housing first/housing-led’ approach to homelessness. She indicated that a particular emphasis will be on the delivery of independent accommodation for homeless persons. She referred also to the Housing Policy Statement of June 2011 which provides for the delivery of new social housing through more flexible funding models.

Eoin O’Sullivan gave a detailed presentation on the Review of the Homeless Strategy 2008 – 2011, ‘Ending Homelessness – A Housing-Led Approach’. He said the development of a housing-led approach to ending homelessness was implicit rather than explicit in the Homeless Strategy and the primary purpose is to make explicit this policy principle. He referred to the Housing Policy Statement, of June 2011, and said that private rented accommodation needed to be considered as a real option for accommodation for families. He went on to say that the scale of homelessness varies and the local response would differentiate because of the variance. He noted that supporting people in housing is more cost effective than supporting them in emergency/transitional homeless services and that the majority of people can sustain tenancies with support.

Michael Layde opened discussion by asking for initial comments on the presentation. He said that the views would be taken on board and this would inform the final draft of the Report. The draft will be circulated to all members shortly for comment

Bob Jordan, Threshold welcomed the proposal for the review of Part 4 of the Residential Tenancies Act 2004. He said that the Residential Tenancy Board had made a huge improvement in relation to security of tenure. He referred to the Housing Assistance Payment and he said that the Rent Supplement should be paid directly to the landlords in advance as the current system limits the sourcing of accommodation. He recommended that a Housing First Task Group should be set up to remove the barriers to private rented accommodation and to make decisions and to set targets and ensure that the required targets are met. Another area he felt warranted comment was in relation to rent caps and the quality of accommodation.

Cathal Morgan, DCC welcomed the presentation and supported the views put forward by Bob Jordan. He said there should be different construction models with flexibility for local issues. The presentation referred to the continuation of the ‘Counted In’ Survey to complement the information gathered from PASS. He did not consider this necessary and suggested agreement should be reached on this before any debate takes place at the Data Sub Group.

Karen Murphy, ICSH indicated that progress was still needed on the existing strategy. She said that there are more barriers in relation to housing supply and they are looking at relets and allocations in existing stock. They are also considering Leasing, SLI and CALF options. She said there is a need for more targets to be set.

Michael Layde said that obstacles will be identified and that every effort would be made to have the barriers identified dealt with it. This will be an overall Government response, it is not only from the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government.

Mike Allen, Focus said he agreed with what Bob Jordan had said. Housing-led is the future and private rented is a crucial element and it can’t wait until the HAP is operational. He noted that DSP challenges need to be looked at and progress made on this. He also said that as the whole focus is on housing-led that prevention gets left out and there needs to be a refocus on this. He indicated that in Dublin there are varying patterns of presentations. He said crucial to all of this is the Regional Fora, they are the essential contact in all of this. A problem he sees in this is that they are not meeting as frequently as they should. He questioned the fact the timeframes were not reached by end of 2010 for ending long-term homelessness and if the 2013 timeframe for the overall strategy would change.

Michael Layde responded that it was a whole of Government response and that is why the meeting was arranged today before the final draft was prepared. It will provide a more creative approach to respond.

Seamus Sisk, Irish Prison Service commented that because of the rent caps some people are paying part of their social welfare to top up the amount required for the rent. He said they have a lot of people coming into the prison system and they welcome the Housing First approach for long-term accommodation. He said that there should also be an emphasis on communal accommodation.

Niamh Randall, Simon agreed that it is not a huge paradigm shift, housing-led approaches are already working effectively in various part of the country but it is useful that people begin to use the same language. She argued the experience at regional Fora was checkered and it was really important that this process was nationally driven and locally delivered. She noted that the SLI model was developed to work with those with low to medium support needs and queried how the support needs of those with higher levels of need might be met including physical health issues, mental health issues, drug and alcohol issues and complex needs.

Kerry Anthony, DePaul referred to measuring progress and operational issues regarding PASS

Tony Flynn, Cosc said that this communal accommodation approach may not be a solution for most of those homeless as a result of domestic violence which were predominantly family groups, women and children. In the case of domestic violence the majority require short term solutions where security and safety requirements are the priority. Some cases repeat a number of times before resolution. A big problem in this category is that some may not be recognised as homeless as they may be part owners or have part tenancy rights of a property but for safety reasons cannot return to their home. He referred to the DoECLG led working group addressing Action 10 of the National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender Based Violence which was set up to develop guidance for housing authorities to assist effectiveness and consistency in the development of housing response for victims of domestic violence and sought recognition of the specific problems of this group in accessing housing in the proposed document.

Maurice Hoare, HSE Chair of the HSE National Homeless Group called for the setting up of an Operational Group under the CDT/NHCC. He remarked that homeless people have such a range of needs to be addressed that there is a need for diversity.

Gerry McNally, Probation Service remarked that there was a need to keep in mind the particular complex needs of homeless persons leaving prison/custody and those on Probation Service supervision in the community and the necessity for joined up services to address/match/manage their needs. He looked forward to implementation of the housing-led approach.

Michael Layde advised that DoECLG will circulate report quite soon and indicate timeline for responses. Comment will be invited formally at this stage. He thanked Eoin for all his work on the draft. He then asked Claire Gavin to give a short outline on the devolved budgets.

Claire Gavin outlined details of the new Devolved Funding Process which commenced on 1 January 2012 between this DoECLG and Dublin City Council. She said that draft protocols are with 3 of the lead authorities for consideration and rollout to the remainder of the leads will be done later this year.

Michael Layde added that with the new framework being developed this will make a very proactive response. He noted that the Housing Assistance Payment remains a high priority area. He said that DoECLG will be updating Government in a few weeks’ time and the CDT/NHCC will be updated at the next meeting.

He went on to say that the issue of housing supply is being looked at but there is an issue for social housing purposes in that while superficially there is so much property there is not the appropriate property available. DoECLG are dealing with NAMA currently on overall housing issues. PASS is a very significant development for the Data Sub Group and this will be discussed with them at their next meeting. He said that his colleagues will arrange for a date to be scheduled as soon as possible. It is crucial that we can measure what we are doing

Mike Allen, Focus acknowledged that the measurement process should be put in place and he noted there was no indication to buy in on PASS at national level. He also strongly advocated the continuation of the ‘Counted In’ process.

Michael Layde said this was raised at the C&V Pillar meeting and it will provide a forum to deal with this.

Proposed Date for next meeting – Tuesday 25th September at 10.30 a.m. in the Custom House